There is one family in particular that I always feel gets a little overlooked when dealing with the Wars of the Roses, or the fifteenth century in general. The Pastons in Norfolk are famous for leaving behind a stack of letters on family matters, business and political subjects which all help us gain a greater understanding of what it was like to live through one of the most turbulent periods in our history. However while Margaret Paston was writing to her husband requesting armour, weapons and men to repel a siege at their home, 135 miles away another family were surviving politically, socially and financially in a country manor at Henley on Thames.
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| Image extracted from page 296 of volume 3 of "Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. L.P", by John Preston Neale. Original held and digitised by the British Library, Copied from Flickr via Wikimedia Commons |
The influence of the Stonors can be traced back to the thirteenth century, the family active during the reign of Edward I, appearing in a grant of land concerning a manor near Henley in 1290. During the medieval period they served the crown as sheriffs of local justice, were summoned to parliament and travelled overseas on diplomatic missions. By the fifteenth century they lived at Stonor Park, a place John Leland described in the mid-sixteenth century as pleasant, with rabbit warrens and deer parks, just a few miles away from the busy riverside market centre of Henley-on-Thames.
The family had tight links with the Chaucers, which continued into the early 1400s through Alice, the granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who married Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury and later, William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. Suffolk was an early victim of the anger and violence simmering before the Wars of the Roses broke, having been sent into exile by Henry VI but intercepted on the sea. A band of sailors gave him a mock trial, beheaded him and threw the duke's body overboard, found mutilated on the shore in May 1450. Before his marriage to Alice, William de la Pole is believed to have had an illegitimate daughter with a nun while serving in the military in France. The nun's name was Malyne de Cay, and the daughter Joan. This is believed to have been the Joan that Thomas Stonor, the next heir of the family estates, married. Another factor in the friendship between the Stonors and the Chaucers is that the Chaucers were based in the nearby village of Ewelme in Oxfordshire.
A document records that de la Pole's daughter Jane was born in Normandy, and the early twentieth century writer Charles Lethbridge Kingston believed that the way she spelled words like 'thesyryd' for desired and 'sendyd' for sent it in her letters revealed that she had been educated abroad. It's possible that also, if she spelled these words phonetically, she may have had a French accent. She died in 1493, while living in Henley-on-Thames and requested in her will that she be buried at the west door of the town's church. Thomas had died on 23 April 1475 and was buried at Pyrton Church.
Thomas and Jane had three sons (William, Thomas and Edmund) and three daughters (Jane, Mary and Elizabeth). Throughout the wars, the family continued to serve Edward IV in battle, accompanying him to France in 1475 and in parliament. William, the eldest son, was born in around 1449 and, as a young man, played an active role in assisting his father with the family estates and dealing with disputes. In 1472 he approached the daughter of Sir Thomas Etchingham, and the widow of William Blount, the son of the first Lord Mountjoy. However the marriage never took place. In 1475 he married Elizabeth Stonor. Elizabeth brought children from her previous marriage to the wealthy merchant Thomas Ryche, and a servant called Thomas Betson, who assisted her in mercantile business for the family's livelihood. Betson was a stockfishmonger and a merchant at Calais, and corresponded with Elizabeth about the family's dabbling in the wool trade, which Elizabeth drove forwards without, if the letters are anything to go by, too much input from William. There is some hint in the letters that some of the Stonors did not welcome Elizabeth openly, perhaps feeling as if she was of a lower social status than them, or perhaps grudging that William did not marry the woman of higher status, Etchingham, his first choice of bride. However, she was praised as a good wife to William, worked towards the family fortunes and checked in on him when he was ill, sending medicines and referring to him in her letters lovingly and with care. Elizabeth attended Court in London and saw Cecily Neville meet with her son Edward IV, writing of the event back home. She died in 1479.
After Elizabeth's death William remarried in around 1480, to another wealthy widow, Agnes Wydeslade. She brought cash and lands to the marriage, through her father's estates in Devon and Cornwall. William seems to have fostered an alliance with the Woodvilles in the early 1480s, and was described in one letter as 'the greatest man with my lord [Dorset, Elizabeth Woodville's son]... the most courteous knight that ever was'. Agnes' marriage to William was short, and she died on 4 May 1481. That autumn, William married for a third time. Beside him at the church door was Anne Neville, the daughter of John, Marquis of Montagu, brother of Warwick the Kingmaker. Although he had ties with the Woodvilles, William was present at Richard III's coronation after Elizabeth Woodville's son Edward V was deposed. However, plotting was underway. Francis Lovell, the staunch supporter of Richard, wrote to William to ensure he would support the king in October 1483. William avoided further contact with Lovell and joined the Buckingham Rebellion of that year, and was later attainted as a traitor in parliament. By February 1484 his lands in Devon and Cornwall were seized by Richard, and his manor of Stonor in Henley granted to none other than Francis Lovell.
After 1485 and Richard's defeat at the Battle of Bosworth, William, like many Tudor supporters, found favour with their new king, Henry VII. He was placed back in charge of his lands and estates and given a close position as Knight of the Body. He continued to serve as sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and in 1490-1491, as sheriff of Devon. He also fought for Henry VII against the Pretender Lambert Simnel at the Battle of Stoke in 1487. He died on 21 May 1495, leaving instructions for prayers to be said for his three wives and other family members.
The later Stonors, living through the early Tudor period, were fractured through various legal battles. William and Anne's son, John, died young and their estates passed to their daughter, Anne. However this was disputed by William's brother Thomas Stonor and a bitter legal battle ensued. Thomas died in 1512, and Anne in 1518. At the time of her death, Anne was married to Sir Adrian Fortescue and had two daughters, Margaret and Frances.
We don't hear much about the Stonor family of Oxfordshire, but they should be considered as important as the Pastons for what their private and business correspondence tells us about life in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Some of their inventories survive too, meaning we are able to build up a picture not only of family relationships but of personal tastes and their surroundings at Stonor during the Wars of the Roses. I deal with a number of Stonor women in my book, Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses, if you'd like to find out more.
Liked this? You might also like The Women of Warwick Castle, Thomas Beauchamp and Katherine Mortimer, Medieval Power Couple and A Visit to Lord Leycester's Hospital, Warwick.
Sources:
Stonor Family Tree, Cambridge.org [accessed 3 July 2025]
Charles Lethbridge Kingston, The Stonor Letters and Papers, Vol 1 and 2, 1290-1483. London, 1919.
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